


Loyalty and Purity

by auralikh



Series: Judaryuu Reverse AU [3]
Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Sparring, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auralikh/pseuds/auralikh
Summary: Zagan, the Djinn of Loyalty and Purity. From the surface, it looks like the most ironic metal vessel Judar could obtain, but if you dig deep enough, a single seed of loyalty has been planted, it just hasn't grown quite yet.





	Loyalty and Purity

**Author's Note:**

> no beta readers this is an alpha only zone

“Shouldn’t you be working on Zagan right now?”

Judar groans from the floor, where he had a whole blanket laid out on the grass and a plate full of peach slices, “We literally just got back from Sindria, let me lay with the peaches for a while. Besides, I don’t see you doing anything.”

“I was…” Hakuryuu’s word drags out as he stares down at the grass, “Well, I was-”

“…Did you forget again?” Judar shoves a slice of fruit in his mouth and pushes it in front of his teeth to make a dumb smile with it.

Hakuryuu glares and the peach slice in Judar’s mouth explodes as it’s suddenly squished into the size of a pea. Judar lets out a yelp and coughs the shriveled dry peach-pea out, then wipes all the sticky peach juice that got all over his face.

“Hakuryuu! What was that for?”

“Sorry, I meant to do something else with it but I forgot.”

“You’re such a dick.” Judar pulls the plate closer to him as if that would do anything.

“Only because you’re so lazy and complacent.” 

“Fuck you,” Judar’s eating the peaches faster now. “Just let me eat this first, then I’ll show you.”

It’s so easy to rile Judar up. It’d be a problem if it was anyone else trying to manipulate him into doing stupid things, but it’s okay. Hakuryuu’s only using him to make him stronger. “Hurry up so you can spar with me then.” 

“I’ll take the whole day to eat these.”

“No you won’t. Like you’re patient enough for that.”

“...Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you should say it.” It doesn’t take long for Judar to finish, and he wipes his hands on the blanket before wrapping his hands up with bandages. It helps with his grip and also makes him look cooler in his opinion.

Judar blinks when Hakuryuu unsheathes a sword instead of the usual spearstaff he wields, “Wait. You’re using a sword? You know how to use one?”

“I learned a bit,” Hakuryuu’s hand delicately glides down the edge of the blade and it reminds Judar of just how strange of a mage Hakuryuu is. The prince-magi always preferred being up close in fights, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to use his strength magic like an extension of his body. Judar hopes he stays that way. A Hakuryuu that just stands back and watches chaos unfold impassively isn’t the Hakuryuu that Judar wants to fight with. “The type of blade isn’t the same, but it should be close enough to what that Alibaba used when you had to fight him for Zagan.”

“...You mean Aladdin. Alibaba’s his magi.” Though to be fair, Judar wouldn’t have remembered who was who if he didn’t have to spend so much time with them in Sindria and Zagan’s dungeon.

“...Right.” The magi adjusts his footing and it’s amazing how well he can remember the details of yesterday’s fight. “I’m… not so good at the first type of magic, but it should be sunny enough for me to use similar attacks with light instead.”

“Have you ever been able to cast a fire spell in your life? You can’t even light a lantern.”

“Don’t make me turn this from a sparring session into a murder session.”

“Alright, alright, sheesh,” Judar groans but stands up, spear ready to go. “Is this going to be one of those “imitate the last battle and you criticize me on every action I make” sessions? I thought you wanted me to train with Zagan so you can see me with vines wrapped around my nipples or whatever the masked pervert’s idea of a djinn equip is.”

“I do want you to use Zagan,” Hakuryuu ignores the last part entirely, “You had an elemental advantage with Caacrinolaas last time, and I don’t want you getting too used to one type of magic. Kougyoku could easily absorb your attacks.” Spheres of light start to hover around Hakuryuu while the blade he’s holding glows hotter and hotter until it looks like a sword that’s been freshly pulled out from the molten bath of the sun. Judar’s having a hard time just keeping his eyes open.

“Eugh, that’s not fair, I can barely look at anything with that and Aladidn’s sword was pitch black!”

“Deal with it.”

Judar groans. Of course he’d say that. The bastard could keep probably adding shit, use magic to make his swings as strong as Kouha’s and say that he’s making up for his lack of raw strength as a mage. Fucking bullshit. There isn’t a mage out there in the world that trains physically like Hakuryuu.

“Just fight me like a normal magi then and drop the sword if you can’t imitate it.” Judar squints his eyes.

“You’re much less likely to be fighting a magi any time soon.” The sword only gets brighter, somehow, and Hakuryuu lunges forward, feet hovering from the ground. A crescent beam of light shoots out from the blade and Judar barely has the time to raise a slew of branches to block the attack. Except that the light burns through all of the trees and he has to dodge the attack anyway. 

Just use Zagan, his ass. Hakuryuu just likes having a power advantage. 

“You ruined my gardening, you bitch!” The tree branches disintegrate and a mass of thorny vines wrap around Hakuryuu’s ankles and waist to yank him down to the ground. The back of his head slams down on the grass and his vision flashes blue and black. Judar takes advantage of that moment of dizziness by flinging himself up in the air with vines and falling straight down towards the magi, spear ready for the kill. 

Hakuryuu manages to tighten his grip on the sword as his head starts to clear, and the blade sears so hot with light it engulfs everything, even when Judar slams his eyes shut. The magi’s just trying to get him to hesitate, to fall off course, but fuck that he’ll crash right into him without looking if that’s how it is. He’s falling faster and faster, blade pointed straight at the ground until-

The sound Judar hears isn’t the sound of metal piercing through flesh and bone, only a dull but loud thunk as he hits the ground, shaking all the dirt and grass around it. Huh? He opens his eyes now that it’s not blindingly bright and Hakuryuu’s nowhere to be seen, not on the ground below him where he made a small crater of dirt, not in front or behind him, not anywhere at all in the field. 

Judar has to use more force than he’d like to pick the spear back up so it wasn’t permanently sheathed to the earth. “Hakuryuuuuu,” He groans, eyes still adjusting to the whiplash of brightness levels, “Fuck you, you know that there’s no way Aladdin could do that! All he has is that one fire djinn!”

Hakuryuu appears behind him, glowing sword raised above his head. “Really? How would you know?” He swings down. Judar blocks it and uses the opportunity to kick Hakuryuu on the knee but the magi always says he won’t use magic until the most annoying moment and the sudden appearance of his borg forces Judar away from him. Dirt trails are left where his feet anchored down on the floor to keep him from flying out and falling on his ass. 

“I know cause I know, alright!” They’re supposed to be sparring, not talking about the logistics of magic and whether it should be possible to create illusions with fire or any of that nonsense. 

They keep going at each other back and forth in waves. Judar will almost get there, blade barely dodging Hakuryuu’s chest or throat, and every time the magi would find some way to use light magic to distract Judar just long enough to dodge the threat, and he’ll reappear from a completely different direction to start things off again. 

“You can’t win anything if you… keep attacking the same way over and over again.” Hakuryuu’s trying to look all composed and unperturbed but Judar can see the way that his shoulders rise and fall, rise rise and fall, uneven breaths that betray his cool demeanor. It’s easy to see the small cuts left by the thorns Judar used over and over, leaving small smudges of blood that barely leave a mark on the little bit of white fabric in Hakuryuu’s hanfu, and they’re all but invisible in the overwhelming black that makes up the rest of his clothes. A single drop of sweat travels down the scarred half of his face and falls off where the jaw starts.

“Yeah, I know,” Judar smiles even though he’s also more out of breath than he’d like, “I just needed you to work up a sweat first.”

“What?”

It’s the spear that’s glowing now but it… doesn’t look like anything’s happening. Hakuryuu readies his sword. The rukh seem to be centered around his body but nothing’s changing? He looks down at himself and sees some of the rukh landing on the small cuts where blood and sweat started to mix. 

“Wait, are you-” Hakuryuu’s jaw suddenly clenches and so does the rest of his body. His fingers twist and stiffen at unnatural angles and the sword falls off from his grip, losing its luster and returning to a mundane blade as it hits the ground unceremoniously. The most the magi could do is groan as all of his muscles cramp in unison and he falls to the ground not far from the sword. His vision blacks out for just a second as everything in his body clamps together, refusing to move, refusing to let Hakuryuu take a breath without fighting for it.

“You… you used…” Hakuryuu has to hiss out the words, it’s amazing that he’s able to control his mouth at all. His sweat stings as it falls onto the small scratches, the tiny but existing openings that go directly into his bloodstream. Of course, Caacrinolaas can turn any waters into poison, and sweat is close enough to be exploitable.

“Yeah, you said that I should use Zagan only,” Judar rests his spear against his shoulder and squats down to look closer at Hakuryuu, “But honestly? Fuck that rule. Who the hell is going to maintain a “use only one vessel” rule during an actual fight?”

Hakuryuu laughs, or rather he lets out the closest thing to a laugh that someone could make while every muscle of his body was stiffening and jolting from an array of spikes that would stab at irregular intervals. “Good. Now… C-can you… get this poison off of me before I die?”

“Ah, right yeah.” Judar grasps his spear with both hands to hone in Caacrinolaas’ power… then stops. “Wait. Do you know how this works?”

“...Judar.”

“W-wait no I got this trust me, hang in there, okay?”

 

* * *

“If Ka Koubun wasn’t there to heal me right then I would have killed you.” Hakuryuu glares up at Judar’s face from the bed. 

“How would you kill me? You were too busy dying on the grass to do anything.”

“I don’t need muscle movement to cast a spell to crush you where you stood.”

“I mean, I guess.” Judar adjusts himself in his seat since he can never find a comfortable way to sit on a chair, ever. Hakuryuu’s still covered with little cuts all over his face, arms, waist, and down the legs but the problem was all the poison that got in his system instead of the blood loss so bandages aren’t necessary. Almost all the cuts stopped bleeding by now anyway. Judar unwraps his own bandages to reveal his scarred hands and stretched out the fingers.

“...Why do you do that, anyway?” Hakuryuu looks down at the discarded pile of bandages and back up at the hands that felt so familiar to the left side of his body. 

“The bandages? It helps with grip, even if it gets a little sweaty sometimes.” Judar wipes his hands off with the blanket and Hakuryuu adjusts himself so that part of the blanket is hanging off the bed and farther away from himself. “Also, doesn’t it look cool?”

“I’d rather see the scars than those sloppily done bandages.”

“Oh?” Judar’s face perks up. “You think the scars look cooler? Are you into battle wounds and the like? Maybe you’re actually just super vain and into how those scars look on you?”

“No, you’re just really bad at putting those bandages on yourself.”

“Rude. I can put the poison right back into your bloodstream and kill you, just like this.” Judar presses his thumb against a scratch on Hakuryuu’s scar, right under the cheekbone. His thumb moves upward, pressing against Hakuryuu’s cheekbone, smearing the bit of blood left on the skin. With the splattered imprint on Hakuryuu’s face and the matching hue that covered Judar’s entire hand and stretched up through the wrist and forearm, they almost looked like two puzzle pieces connected. A little off kilter, as if shoved together at the wrong angle on purpose, but still together.

Hakuryuu, from his position, can’t see how their skin matches up though. “You won’t be able to poison me fast enough, I’ll bring you down with me.”

“Really, you’re just gonna go down like that? At least fight for your life a bit first.”

Hakuryuu sighs. “If that’s how you’d like it.”

Judar wriggles in his seat again until settling on sitting with his legs crossed on the chair as if it was a flying carpet instead. “...I still can’t believe you actually went all the way to Zagan. Considering how you, like, literally snatched Caacrinolaas to me and basically said you wouldn’t care if I died in the process.”

“Yeah, guess I forgot about that last part.” 

Of course he didn’t. Not with the way that he’s looking at the window adjacent to Judar but not directly at the retainer. Judar snickers. “You were worried, weren’t you? My cold, callous magi had a moment of warmth? For me?”

Hakuryuu glares at him but Judar’s familiar enough with the magi’s expressions to know that he can keep teasing for a little bit longer. “No I did not, don’t you have better things to do?”

“I mean, my main job title is keep you alive. I should probably stick next to you to do that.” Judar pokes Hakuryuu on the cheek, the scarred cheek, the better side of his face. “You  _ did _ care, admit it! You didn’t even stay in Sindria cause you dragged my ass out of there almost immediately!”

“Yeah, because I didn’t want to see Sinbad’s disgusting face,” Hakuryuu’s face twists in contempt as if to prove his point, “I hate how-”

“How everyone’s practically slobbering at his feet and kissing his ass, I know, I know.” Hakuryuu opens his mouth to protest but Judar’s going to continue anyway, “Yeah I know you wouldn’t put it into such  _ coarse _ language but that’s pretty much how you feel so I’m cutting to the point. Anyway, it just proves my point even further. You had to get to a place where you could potentially meet Shitbad in order to fetch me and we came right back to Kou afterwards. You even brought Caacrinolaas with you just in case I needed it to fight. Sounds like care to me, hm?”

By the look on Hakuryuu’s face, Judar’s running out of teasing time real fast. “I wasn’t going to leave a metal vessel out of my sight so that anyone could take it. You ended up needing it to fight against Aladdin for Zagan, anyway.”

Judar leans back on his chair, stopping at the perfect angle where he looks like he could fall over but doesn’t. “Zagan hated the djinn Aladdin had. Would’ve given himself to me anyway.”

“That’s just a hypothetical.”

“You’re a hypothetical.”

“Do you even know what that means?”

“Nope!” Judar leans forward and the front legs of the chair hit the floor. “Look, I can sit here and go off all day. About how you broke open the treasury door and immediately commanded Zagan to submit to me, bringing Caacrinolaas but not your own spearstaff… what else… Oh yeah and-”

“Stop.” Hakuryuu sighs and grips the blankets under him. “Fine. I was… slightly concerned that you might not be able to get the job done. But. Only because you took so long to figure out how to use a djinn equip and your magoi manipulation skills aren’t as efficient as they could be.”

The retainer hops off of his chair. “You sound like you’re saying that just so I can get off of your ass.”

“Something along that line.” Judar sticking along in general is fine. Judar constantly trying to make him say something and relentlessly talking about it isn’t fine.

“Maybe I should just stay here longer then. Suffocate you with my presence.”

Hakuryuu yanks Judar’s braid.

“Ow! Okay fine, have your solitude you big emo.” 


End file.
